Hello,
We are the very happy recipients of a grant from NOAA that will be implemented through the local NEP office to instutite "Florida Friendly" Yards practices in our older local community here in Southwest Florida. My question to the list is to solicit your feedback on how to best engage the community so they are interested and motivated to participate in our lofty plans? I am collecting water quality data so we can hopefully demonstrate improved water quality as we implement these soft BMP's, and I also have the EPA's "Community Culture and the Environment" workbook, although I have not had the chance to do a training workshop or read all the way through the workbook. It is my opinion that we have a lot of blissfully ignorant people in my neck of the woods who are unaware that they need to be concerned about how their personal actions impact the planet (septic tanks, lawn fertilizer, toxins from cars etc). I absolutely concur with the ideal of using positive reinforcement for behavior modification, and would appreciate learning helpful strategies from those of you who have more knowledge that I on how to proceed.
Thanks for you help!
Nora D
Nora Egan Demers
Associate Professor of Biology and Interdisciplinary Studies
Florida Gulf Coast University
Ft. Myers, FL 33965
(239) 590-7211
FAX (239) 590-7200
e-mail [email protected]
http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/ndemers/demers.html
Implementing "Soft" Best Management Practices for Improving Water Quality- Assistance Requested
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Hi Nora,
This website has a ton of great ideas for you on how to encourage the behaviors you wish to promote. Basically, you have to market your ideas/suggestions such that they are framed in terms of benefit to THE PERSON, not necessarily water quality benefit.
It's nice to be able to demonstrate WQ improvements to your funders, but the number of members of your target audience who will take the time to understand these figures is negligible. It will also be difficult for you to separate out other factors and actually be able to demonstrate water quality improvements attributable to your project(s). I think it is safe to say that these practices benefit water quality (we've got tons of research to back up those claims), so IF you broach this topic with the public, you're better off making general claims rather than claiming that you will be able to demonstrate improvements.
My 2 cents.
Sarah Bruce
NC Clean Water Education Partnership
United States
www.ncCleanWater.org